Investors looking for stocks in the Schools sector might want to consider either American Public Education (APEI) or Lincoln Educational Services Corporation (LINC). But which of these two stocks offers value investors a better bang for their buck right now? We'll need to take a closer look.
We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. The Zacks Rank is a proven strategy that targets companies with positive earnings estimate revision trends, while our Style Scores work to grade companies based on specific traits.
Currently, American Public Education has a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy), while Lincoln Educational Services Corporation has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold). This system places an emphasis on companies that have seen positive earnings estimate revisions, so investors should feel comfortable knowing that APEI is likely seeing its earnings outlook improve to a greater extent. But this is just one factor that value investors are interested in.
Value investors also try to analyze a wide range of traditional figures and metrics to help determine whether a company is undervalued at its current share price levels.
Our Value category highlights undervalued companies by looking at a variety of key metrics, including the popular P/E ratio, as well as the P/S ratio, earnings yield, cash flow per share, and a variety of other fundamentals that have been used by value investors for years.
APEI currently has a forward P/E ratio of 19.58, while LINC has a forward P/E of 54.83. We also note that APEI has a PEG ratio of 1.31. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. LINC currently has a PEG ratio of 3.66.
Another notable valuation metric for APEI is its P/B ratio of 3.05. The P/B ratio is used to compare a stock's market value with its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. For comparison, LINC has a P/B of 6.85.
These metrics, and several others, help APEI earn a Value grade of B, while LINC has been given a Value grade of D.
APEI stands above LINC thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that APEI is the superior value option right now.
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American Public Education, Inc. (APEI): Free Stock Analysis Report
Lincoln Educational Services Corporation (LINC): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).